Lyon Arboretum – Kaunanahttp://manoa.hawaii.edu/kaunana
The Research Publication of the University of Hawai’i at MānoaSat, 10 Dec 2016 00:24:44 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1UH highlights sustainability and research at World Conservation Congresshttp://manoa.hawaii.edu/kaunana/uh-highlights-sustainability-and-research-at-world-conservation-congress/
Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:34:31 +0000http://manoa.hawaii.edu/kaunana/?p=4589University of Hawaiʻi researchers, faculty and students will participate in a broad range of initiatives related to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress (WCC), September 1–10. More than 8,700 officials and experts are expected to attend from around the world.

Two UH programs are full voting members of the IUCN: the William S. Richardson School of Law Environmental Law Program and Lyon Arboretum. In addition to actively participating at the IUCN Member’s Assembly, these programs play a major role in many varied conservation efforts across the islands and the Pacific.

“WCC is bringing the world of conservation to our doorstep,” said UH President David Lassner. “Not only can we share the amazing work of our students and faculty with the world, but this is an unparalleled opportunity to learn from others as we develop and strengthen partnerships and relationships with the global of conservation and sustainability community.”

On August 31, President Obama will be at the East-West Center on the UH Mānoa campus to talk with Pacific leaders and select conservationists, where he is expected to address the expansion of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The creation of the world’s largest marine sanctuary was supported by leading UH scientists and coral reef specialists such as Robert Richmond and Ruth Gates.

World Commission on Environmental Law Programming one-day event (UH Mānoa law school)

Workshop on the feasibility of a model mosquito eradication project for areas prone to mosquito-borne disease (UH Mānoa and UH Hilo)

Kūʻula Integrated Science students presenting a chant and hula describing human relationships with the ocean and coral reefs to open the Marine World Heritage Reception (UH Hilo)

UH Mānoa students are serving as interns for the IUCN Global Gender Office; others are serving as general volunteers at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center

UH Mānoa communications students are working with the IUCN Global Communications team to develop original media content and assist with social media during the Congress

Undergraduate and high school students who earned IUCN Summer Certificates at UH Mānoa Outreach Collegereceived free passes to attend the Congress

High school students taking college science courses at Windward CC created for the IUCN will host a one-day huakaʻi in the Koʻolaupoko region

UH is also planning two announcements of major upcoming projects related to sustainability.

Held every four years, the WCC brings together leaders from government, the public sector, non-governmental organizations, business, United Nation agencies and indigenous and grass-roots organizations to discuss and decide on solutions to the world’s most pressing environment and development challenges. WCC 2016 in Hawaiʻi is the first time the Congress is meeting in the United States.

“If you lose one species it’s going to be a ripple effect,” said Erin King, a Hawaiian Rare Plant Program student assistant from UH Mānoa who works at the laboratory. “You are going to lose the bugs the birds, and all the other things that depend on this one native plant that might not seem important, but for all these other species, it’s very important.”

Bontanical support student assistant Keoni Kikala from Windward Community College, likens rare plant species to the rivets holding an airplane together. “You’ll never know when you will lose that one component where it will all fall apart,” he cautioned.

New facility critical for native plant preservation

This important program is currently housed in an almost 100-year-old building that is termite ridden. Because it holds important rare plant cultures, the structure can’t be fumigated, so staff has resorted to plugging termite holes with coins and calk.

The good news is construction is underway for a new $2.5-million facility that will expand the arboretum’s important efforts to store, propagate and eventually restore many of Hawaiʻi’s native plants that are in jeopardy.

“It really ensures that we can safeguard some of this germplasm for the future, when there are available sites for restoration,” said Nellie Sugii, Hawaiian Rare Plant Program manager. “We can withdraw some of these plants and put them back into the wild.”

Keoni Kikala, a botanical support student assistant, in the Hawaiian Rare Plant Program Micropropagation Laboratory in the Lyon Arboretum.

The construction of the new laboratory facilities will double the growing space for the current lab’s 20,000-plus plants and provide greater public access to this unique program. The design of the new laboratory will also allow for non-obtrusive public viewing into the research facility.

A coalition of concerned individuals including scientists, craftspeople, environmentalists and Native Hawaiian practitioners like Kalena Silva (pictured) has helped the #ohialove campaign to flourish. See Hawaiian chant translation.

A strong show of public support for the #ohialove crowdfunding campaign to bank ʻōhiʻa tree seeds in the face of the Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death (ROD) epidemic has encouraged organizers to increase their fundraising goal.

“Increasing our goal to $50,000 will allow us to double the amount of seeds collected, processed and stored,” explained Lyon Arboretum Seed Conservation Laboratory Manager and project leader Marian Chau. “The additional funds would also allow two additional trips to Hawaiʻi island to collect more potentially ROD-resistant ʻōhiʻa tree seeds that could be highly valuable for restoration.”

The initial goal of $35,000 for the seed banking effort was reached in about two months with 407 individual contributions via GoFundMe.com/ohialove. The money enabled the staff to begin collecting, processing and preserving ʻōhiʻa seeds for future re-introduction into the Hawaiian forest.

Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death is a virulent disease that has killed more than 100,000 ʻōhiʻa trees on Hawaiʻi Island, impacting the entire Hawaiian forest ecosystem. Seed banking is a proven technique for plant conservation especially during crisis that put species at high risk.

Read more in UH News

The mission of the Seed Conservation Laboratory is to prevent the extinction of Hawaiʻi’s rare plant species. Currently they have banked more than 11 million seeds, representing about 40 percent of native Hawaiian flora, more than half of which are endangered.

Learn more about the significance of ʻōhiʻa and the work being done at Lyon Arboretum

The tree-filled campus of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is now an accredited arboretum, one of 134 internationally and one of two in Hawaiʻi, joining UH’s Harold L. Lyon Arboretum. UH Mānoa received the recognition from the Morton Arboretum’s ArbNet, the world’s only arboretum accreditation program.

“We look at it as giving us an opportunity to show off our campus,” said Richard Criley, UH Mānoa emeritus professor of horticulture. “It gives us a little clout. There are not that many universities that have arboreta that are accredited by ArbNet.”

UH Mānoa joins 37 universities and colleges with ArbNet accredited arboretums including the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, Ohio State University and American University in Washington D.C. Other accredited institutions include Arlington National Cemetery, Shanghai Botanical Gardens in China and the Tasmanian Arboretum in Australia.

The 320-acre Mānoa campus features more than 4,000 trees and more than 500 species. It received a Level I accreditation from ArbNet that acknowledges the university for its high standards of professional practices deemed important for arboreta and botanic gardens.

Sausage tree (Kigelia africana)

Campus tree history and management

UH Mānoa, originally named the College of Hawaiʻi, was established in 1907 with a plan to treat the campus as an arboretum. In 1915, famed botanist Joseph Rock began planting hundreds trees from all over the world.

“A large part of what are present campus is all about is those plants, some of them going back, maybe a hundred years,” said Criley. “We’ve got these neat things and we’ve added to them over the years. A bunch of plantings came in, probably about, 50 or 60 years ago.”

“These older trees are now the eldest living members of our community and they embody the memory of a century of engagement with the Mānoa landscape,” said David Strauch, a graduate student in geography who is currently serving as the campus horticultural cartographer. Strauch also spearheaded the accreditation effort.

Examples of the unique species on the Mānoa campus include the sausage tree (Kigelia africana), the cannon ball tree (Couroupita guianensis) and the baobab tree (Adansonia digitata), which may be the largest in the country. The amazing variety of trees provides an outdoor laboratory for faculty and students in a broad range of subjects including botany, horticulture, field biology, natural history, art, Hawaiian studies, museum studies, ecology, conservation and sustainability.

“We have a landscape advisory committee that created a tree policy on how to manage the trees on campus,” said Criley. “We like to replace trees when trees have come out and we also, under this new accreditation, would like to be able to add new trees.”

The university’s buildings and grounds management department provides the labor and staff, oversees volunteer plantings and maintains records, documenting the attributes of each tree including species, approximate age and condition. The inventory is available online at manoa.hawaii.edu/landscaping/plantmap.php where the public can search for and identify the trees and plants around them.

About the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program

The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program is sponsored and coordinated by The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois in cooperation with the American Public Gardens Association and Botanic Gardens Conservation International. The only global initiative to officially recognize arboreta based on a set of professional standards, the program offers four levels of accreditation, recognizing arboreta of various degrees of development, capacity and professionalism. Accreditation is based on self-assessment and documentation of an arboretum’s level of achievement of accreditation standards. Standards include planning, governance, labeling of species, staff or volunteer support, public access and programming and tree science, planting and conservation. More information is available at www.arbnet.org.

More about UH Mānoa trees

UH Mānoa students create a website that provides basic information for almost every tree on campus. Read more.

This Hāhā is a member of the Bellflower family (Campanulaceae) and has only ever been known from a small number of individuals in the mesic forests of the leeward Southern Ko`olau Mountains of O`ahu where it was often found growing with koa (Acacia koa), kopiko (Psychotria mariniana), lama (Diospyros sandwicensis), and halapepe (Pleomele halapepe). These plants grow up to 2 meters tall and have highly divided leaves with small, slightly dull, prickles. The flowers are purple and white and curved to match the shape of a native Hawaiian Honeycreeper’s beak. When the flowers are fully open a small amount of sweet nectar is produced, a reward for pollinating the flowers. Sister species occur in the Wai`anae Mountains of O`ahu and on Moloka`i. All are extremely rare and highly threatened by feral ungulates, invasive weeds, and non-native slugs.

In 2004, OPEP was able to collect fruit from the last two individuals just before both plants died, leaving this species extinct in the wild. The fruit were taken to the Lyon Micropropagation lab and many individuals were propagated and cloned to prevent this species from blinking out. Once secure in the lab, the Pahole Rare Plant Facility was able to grow several large plants to be returned to the wild. This reintroduction marks an important step in preserving this uniquely Hawaiian species. This was truly a joint effort between several conservation partners who each play a significant role in preventing the extinction of rare plant species.